rzrwiresunrise:It'd be one thing if Israel were a power broker working for peace in the ME, but they're not. It's been time to radically reassess US relations with them, and I can only hope that as more and more of these revelations come to light, we'll start moving toward an official realignment.

Peace in the middle east does not revolve around Israel. Look at Syria, Egypt, Iraq, Yemen, every farking country in that region. Okay, a few of them aren't embroiled in civil war, but there's a bit of terrorism from time to time.

If I had to live in the middle east, I'd say Israel looks like a pretty good choice. They certainly make a better ally than Saudi Arabia.

That balance of power in the Middle East, along with the memories of getting their asses whipped the last time, is what has helped keep Israel from getting wiped off the map by those who openly promote murdering every Jew.

The Middle East could be a nice place if folks over there could stop finding reasons to kill each other en mass for awhile.

liam76:HotWingConspiracy: liam76: gfid: Peace in the middle east does not revolve around Israel. Look at Syria, Egypt, Iraq, Yemen, every farking country in that region. Okay, a few of them aren't embroiled in civil war, but there's a bit of terrorism from time to time.

Nobody cares about that because Israel isn't involved.

Sadly, about the only thing that gets all the other groups to play nice is them.

Oh thank goodness for their wisdom and superiority over the savages.

/you can't help yourself, you don't even know you're doing it because you believe it

Words I never said.

But if you believe it is really implied by what I said, and you can't tell me anything that has united them or gotten them to work together as much as fighting Israel, what does that say about you?

Because I am waiting for an example of that cooperation...

BTW, you haver been more pathetic than normal.

You normally hem and haw, move goal posts, etc when called out on your lies about Israel.

HotWingConspiracy:liam76: gfid: Peace in the middle east does not revolve around Israel. Look at Syria, Egypt, Iraq, Yemen, every farking country in that region. Okay, a few of them aren't embroiled in civil war, but there's a bit of terrorism from time to time.

Nobody cares about that because Israel isn't involved.

Sadly, about the only thing that gets all the other groups to play nice is them.

Oh thank goodness for their wisdom and superiority over the savages.

/you can't help yourself, you don't even know you're doing it because you believe it

Words I never said.

But if you believe it is really implied by what I said, and you can't tell me anything that has united them or gotten them to work together as much as fighting Israel, what does that say about you?

Well, that is all that is really needed, when you are always spewing boilerplate lies.

HotWingConspiracy:I'm going to call you out every time I see you do it, get used to it.

Please, call me out.Point to exactly where I sais Palestenians need Israeli's to be in charge.

HotWingConspiracy:Ah, so you're one of those people that reject that Palestinians even exist. They're all Jordanian expats

Claiming there is no racial difference between Jordanians and Palestenians doesn't reject the existance of Palestine. Anymore than pointing out there is no racial difference between the people of northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland rejects the existence of Northern Ireland.

But go ahead and grasp at made up positions to attack me for. We know it is all you have to deflect from your regular lies.

HotWingConspiracy:Yes, we went over this yesterday. Yo view the Israeli's as a superior race of paternalistic betters.

No, what we went over is that you stay silent when anyone spits a lie abotu Israel. No matter how nonsensical or far from the truth. today you are even spreading the BS yoruself.

And the second soemoen dares to correct it, you attack the message,a nd you attack the messanger with BS anaolgies to slavery and claims of racial superiority that are in no way backed up with what is said.

1. Israel didn't sign the nuclear non-proliferation treaty. So they never promised not to have nukes. Can't really hold them to a treaty they didn't agree to. Iran did on the other hand.

2. The world has been fairly sure for about the last 45 years that Israel had at least a handful of nukes. They haven't done anything super stupid or irresponsible with them.

3. The tech was transferred during a period of time when there was a huge amount of arms being given to Israel as an open matter of policy.

4. With their fairly developed tech base Israel at this point has the ability to build and develop their own program with very little trouble.

5. Can you honestly say that having the plausible threat of a retaliatory strike hasn't prevented the Arabic countries surrounding Israel from invading/attacking them on a regular basis over the last 40 years?

gfid:I'm not usually one to say "I stopped reading right there", but I saw something about "The Truth" and I looked at the URL and saw the guardian and yeah I stopped reading right there.

This is what made it suspicious to me:

A few years later, on 22 September 1979, a US satellite, Vela 6911, detected the double-flash typical of a nuclear weapon test off the coast of South Africa. Leonard Weiss, a mathematician and an expert on nuclear proliferation, was working as a Senate advisor at the time and after being briefed on the incident by US intelligence agencies and the country's nuclear weapons laboratories, he became convinced a nuclear test, in contravention to the Limited Test Ban Treaty, had taken place.

Actually, the double-flash detected by the Vela satellite had *SOME* characteristics typical of a nuclear test, but it also had some characteristics that weren't typical of a nuclear test, and the US spent a lot of money trying to confirm it was a nuclear test, and basically came up empty.

The west inviting a bunch of European Jews to take land away from the locals was... in hindsight a bad idea. (Yes, I know there were a number of Jews still living there when Israel was created).

Israel should never have been created.

... but we can't change history... it was. Now 70 years or so later we can't ship the Jews all back to Europe. Most were born there... lived there their entire lives.

There is an obvious need to protect the people in Israel.

However, we need to assert influence, and pressure on Israel to stop it acting like a bully and pariah state. The people of Israel are not evil but the country acts in an evil way. Understandably since they are motivated by fear.

It may be a democracy but Napoleon was chosen by a republican body. Hitler was elected. Even George W Bush was elected to one of his two terms.

water00boy:This is news? The only question is whether the US will continue to stand with it's ally, or eventually go over to supporting the Arabs, et al.

Zechariah 14: 2 "For I will gather all nations against Jerusalem..."

14:3 "Then the Lord will go forth, and fight against those nations, as He fights in the day of battle..."

14:12 "And this shall be the plague with which the Lord will strike all the people who fought against Jerusalem: Their flesh shall dissolve while they stand on their feet, Their eyes shall dissolve in their sockets, And their tongues shall dissolve in their mouths."

In another translation it talks about the flesh flying off before the bones hit the ground. Neutron weapons, anyone? Better get your thermal underwear on.

With the re-establishment of Israel and this administration's cozying up to "alternative" policies, it's coming, and coming fast (relatively speaking). I hope I'm not around, but I fear for my kids.Please take a moment to point out how batsh#@ crazy you think I am.

No need. I think you have covered your bat guano craziness adequately for all of us. Because taking twenty first century geopolitical guidance from a bronze age drug trip speaks for itself.

NewportBarGuy:If you read Clancy's book and had any kind of a minor interest in reading about foreign policy, you know about this 40 years ago.

Which is about the point we should have put an embargo in place. Not only shouldn't we be giving Israel aid, we should, by international law, be cutting off all trade with Israel until they give up their nuclear weapons.

The fact that every other country around Israel is one of the bad guys doesn't change the fact that Israel is one of the bad guys too.

It'd be one thing if Israel were a power broker working for peace in the ME, but they're not. It's been time to radically reassess US relations with them, and I can only hope that as more and more of these revelations come to light, we'll start moving toward an official realignment.

There probably isn't a post abotu Israel without a similiar lie from you.

HotWingConspiracy:You just don't care for my opinions and cannot refute them without referring to the "Why is Israel so awesome all the time?"

Pointing out the mall, water, park, zoo, car dealers, Hosptials, and Universities in Gaza and the WB is saying "Israel is so awesome"?

BTW, if you weren;t such a raging antisemite who felt compelled to support any lie about Israel, no matter how absurd, you may have noticed that I think Israel shoudl get out of the WB, and deal or no deal give Palestina chance at running their own state.

HotWingConspiracy:You do hate Arabs, please stop pretending you have no history outside of this thread.

A claim you repaet again and again, yet can never prove.

Funny that the claim comes up when you are spreading and supproting lies about Israel, yet you seem to think you have no bias.

liam76:liam76: HotWingConspiracy: liam76: gfid: Peace in the middle east does not revolve around Israel. Look at Syria, Egypt, Iraq, Yemen, every farking country in that region. Okay, a few of them aren't embroiled in civil war, but there's a bit of terrorism from time to time.

Nobody cares about that because Israel isn't involved.

Sadly, about the only thing that gets all the other groups to play nice is them.

Oh thank goodness for their wisdom and superiority over the savages.

/you can't help yourself, you don't even know you're doing it because you believe it

Words I never said.

But if you believe it is really implied by what I said, and you can't tell me anything that has united them or gotten them to work together as much as fighting Israel, what does that say about you?

Because I am waiting for an example of that cooperation...

OPEC comes to mind.

BTW, you haver been more pathetic than normal.

You normally hem and haw, move goal posts, etc when called out on your lies about Israel.

I've never lied. You just don't care for my opinions and cannot refute them without referring to the "Why is Israel so awesome all the time?" pamphlet you got at an AIPAC seminar.

Now you just make shiat up, and accuse me of hating Arabs.

You do hate Arabs, please stop pretending you have no history outside of this thread. Your disdain seeps through even when you try to mask it.

liam76:gfid: Peace in the middle east does not revolve around Israel. Look at Syria, Egypt, Iraq, Yemen, every farking country in that region. Okay, a few of them aren't embroiled in civil war, but there's a bit of terrorism from time to time.

Nobody cares about that because Israel isn't involved.

Sadly, about the only thing that gets all the other groups to play nice is them.

Oh thank goodness for their wisdom and superiority over the savages.

/you can't help yourself, you don't even know you're doing it because you believe it

My brother, my cousin, my aunt, and I each spent parts of our lives serving in the SAME, 12 YEAR LONG WAR that still isn't over.

Who forced you all to sign up to kill brown people or did you just do it because you all like murder?

As you mention this "war" has been going on for +10 years. You all signed up knowing you'd be going over to fight as the "war" was already on. Don't support the war? Fine, don't whine when you chose to fight it.

Laobaojun:Felgraf: water00boy: In another translation it talks about the flesh flying off before the bones hit the ground. Neutron weapons, anyone? Better get your thermal underwear on.

That's not how neutron weapons work. The flesh is still on the corpses when they hit the ground.

This.

Zechariah 14:12 "And this shall be the plague with which the Lord will strike all the people who fought against Jerusalem: Their flesh shall dissolve while they stand on their feet, Their eyes shall dissolve in their sockets, And their tongues shall dissolve in their mouths."

The passage sounds more like a bronze age description of Ebola or one of the other fast acting hemorrhagic viruses. Or someone on a bad hallucinogen trip.

Hey Butt-head I'm starting to feel weird, I think I'm freaking out! This is cool! It's like everything's all weird and stuff, there's like all these weird shapes, it's sort of like, it's like... um like a music video!

CleanAndPure:The west inviting a bunch of European Jews to take land away from the locals was... in hindsight a bad idea. (Yes, I know there were a number of Jews still living there when Israel was created).

Israel should never have been created.

... but we can't change history... it was. Now 70 years or so later we can't ship the Jews all back to Europe. Most were born there... lived there their entire lives.

There is an obvious need to protect the people in Israel.

However, we need to assert influence, and pressure on Israel to stop it acting like a bully and pariah state. The people of Israel are not evil but the country acts in an evil way. Understandably since they are motivated by fear.

It may be a democracy but Napoleon was chosen by a republican body. Hitler was elected. Even George W Bush was elected to one of his two terms.

Democracies can do bad things.

You can't take away land from locals who never owned it to begin with. I believe 85% of the land was owned by absentee landowners in Turkey (I don't have the college textbook in front of me with this stat, so take it with a grain of salt).

Thank God it's Israel and not a terrorist country. Got worried for a second.

These are the things I think about when I think about Israel's security. When I consider Israel's security, I also think about a people who have a living memory of the Holocaust, faced with the prospect of a nuclear-armed Iranian government that has called for Israel's destruction. It's no wonder Israelis view this as an existential threat. But this is not simply a challenge for Israel -- it is a danger for the entire world, including the United States. A nuclear-armed Iran would raise the risk of nuclear terrorism. It would undermine the non-proliferation regime. It would spark an arms race in a volatile region. And it would embolden a government that has shown no respect for the rights of its own people or the responsibilities of nations.

President ObamaMarch 21, 2013

Which is why he bent over like a biatch and caved to every single Iranian demand with no concessions.

CleanAndPure:The west inviting a bunch of European Jews to take land away from the locals was... in hindsight a bad idea. (Yes, I know there were a number of Jews still living there when Israel was created).

Israel should never have been created.

... but we can't change history... it was. Now 70 years or so later we can't ship the Jews all back to Europe. Most were born there... lived there their entire lives.

There is an obvious need to protect the people in Israel.

However, we need to assert influence, and pressure on Israel to stop it acting like a bully and pariah state. The people of Israel are not evil but the country acts in an evil way. Understandably since they are motivated by fear.

It may be a democracy but Napoleon was chosen by a republican body. Hitler was elected. Even George W Bush was elected to one of his two terms.

Democracies can do bad things.

You seem to have a poor grasp on history. (Hint: The U.S. did not 'create' Isreal, however we did vote for it in the UN.)

rzrwiresunrise:It'd be one thing if Israel were a power broker working for peace in the ME, but they're not. It's been time to radically reassess US relations with them, and I can only hope that as more and more of these revelations come to light, we'll start moving toward an official realignment.

Your attitude seems common but I think is based on the mistaken assumption that the US and it's allies are the "good guys". I do not agree with a lot of Israel's foreign and domestic policy but they are, on the average, a stabilizing force in the Middle East. Plus they don't go around arming every splinter group and rebel army that happens to be working against their enemies at the moment the way that some Middle Eastern countries have done and they way that the US and Russians have turned into a major industry.

/besides, a major war in the Middle East would be a HORRIBLE thing and if maintaining strong connections with Israel helps to prevent that then I'll count it as a necessary cost.

All of you lefties who think Obama and Hillary are the greatest thing since sliced, free-range, grass-fed, gluten-free bread need to look at the record and see how they suck up to AIPAC as much as everyone else (except Ron Paul-- the greatest American hero).

I do give credit to Obama for at least talking to the Iranians, while everyone else in DC, including his own party-- try and sabotage him.

AIPAC and their evangelical friends are more of a threat to the US than Iran, Syria, and the polar vortex combined.

rzrwiresunrise : "...This is exactly the kind of biblical passage that fanatics use to justify any number of atrocities. Any type of religion that is based on the idea of a chosen people is bound to see justification for just about any kind of violence..."

In Israel's case, it's not so much "justification" of the future as it's reaction to violence heaped upon it in the past and for a whole lot longer than "70 years". The Holocaust was the culmination of 1000's of years of anti-Jewish sentiment in Europe, with various diatribes citing them being Christ-killers, baby sacrificers, etc. Whether or not you subscribe to that view point, the amount of hatred poured onto the Jews for centuries is difficult to deny. Under those circumstances, if I finally got my own place, you better believe I get my a** the biggest stick I can find.

But no doubt about it, they unquestionably see their place in the Middle East, and the world, as predestined. But almost all religious people have some kind of "how it will play out" scenario in their head. You can bet all those other guys in their neighborhood have one.

omnibus_necanda_sunt:Meanwhile, Israeli agents charged with buying fissile material and state-of-the-art technology found their way into some of the most sensitive industrial establishments in the world. This daring and remarkably successful spy ring, known as Lakam, the Hebrew acronym for the innocuous-sounding Science Liaison Bureau, included such colourful figures as Arnon Milchan, a billionaire Hollywood producer behind such hits as Pretty Woman, LA Confidential and 12 Years a Slave,"Do you know what it's like to be a twentysomething-year-old kid [and] his country lets him be James Bond? Wow! The action! That was exciting," he said in an Israeli documentary.Milchan's life storyis colourful, and unlikely enough to be the subject of one of the blockbusters he bankrolls. In the documentary, Robert de Niro recalls discussing Milchan's role in the illicit purchase of nuclear-warhead triggers. "At some point I was asking something about that, being friends, but not in an accusatory way. I just wanted to know," De Niro says. "And he said: yeah I did that. Israel's my country."Milchan was not shy about using Hollywood connections to help his shadowy second career. At one point, he admits in the documentary, he used the lure of a visit to actor Richard Dreyfuss's home to get a top US nuclear scientist, Arthur Biehl, to join the board of one of his companies.According to Milchan's biography, by Israeli journalists Meir Doron and Joseph Gelman, he was recruited in 1965 by Israel's current president, Shimon Peres, who he met in a Tel Aviv nightclub (called Mandy's, named after the hostess and owner's wife Mandy Rice-Davies, freshly notorious for her role in the Profumo sex scandal). Milchan, who then ran the family fertiliser company, never looked back, playing a central role in Israel's clandestine acquisition programme.

This is the f*ucking story, you idiots.

Yeah, it is the story.

But given Israel's stance on peopelw ho talk abotu their nukes, I find it a bit tough to take at face value.

Not that I put shady deals or outright stealing things to get nukes bayond them at all, I just doubt a guy that involved with it would be talking abotu it.

gfid:Peace in the middle east does not revolve around Israel. Look at Syria, Egypt, Iraq, Yemen, every farking country in that region. Okay, a few of them aren't embroiled in civil war, but there's a bit of terrorism from time to time.

Nobody cares about that because Israel isn't involved.

Sadly, about the only thing that gets all the other groups to play nice is them.

Meanwhile, Israeli agents charged with buying fissile material and state-of-the-art technology found their way into some of the most sensitive industrial establishments in the world. This daring and remarkably successful spy ring, known as Lakam, the Hebrew acronym for the innocuous-sounding Science Liaison Bureau, included such colourful figures as Arnon Milchan, a billionaire Hollywood producer behind such hits as Pretty Woman, LA Confidential and 12 Years a Slave,"Do you know what it's like to be a twentysomething-year-old kid [and] his country lets him be James Bond? Wow! The action! That was exciting," he said in an Israeli documentary.Milchan's life story is colourful, and unlikely enough to be the subject of one of the blockbusters he bankrolls. In the documentary, Robert de Niro recalls discussing Milchan's role in the illicit purchase of nuclear-warhead triggers. "At some point I was asking something about that, being friends, but not in an accusatory way. I just wanted to know," De Niro says. "And he said: yeah I did that. Israel's my country."Milchan was not shy about using Hollywood connections to help his shadowy second career. At one point, he admits in the documentary, he used the lure of a visit to actor Richard Dreyfuss's home to get a top US nuclear scientist, Arthur Biehl, to join the board of one of his companies.According to Milchan's biography, by Israeli journalists Meir Doron and Joseph Gelman, he was recruited in 1965 by Israel's current president, Shimon Peres, who he met in a Tel Aviv nightclub (called Mandy's, named after the hostess and owner's wife Mandy Rice-Davies, freshly notorious for her role in the Profumo sex scandal). Milchan, who then ran the family fertiliser company, never looked back, playing a central role in Israel's clandestine acquisition programme.

water00boy:This is news? The only question is whether the US will continue to stand with it's ally, or eventually go over to supporting the Arabs, et al.

Zechariah 14: 2 "For I will gather all nations against Jerusalem..."

14:3 "Then the Lord will go forth, and fight against those nations, as He fights in the day of battle..."

14:12 "And this shall be the plague with which the Lord will strike all the people who fought against Jerusalem: Their flesh shall dissolve while they stand on their feet, Their eyes shall dissolve in their sockets, And their tongues shall dissolve in their mouths."

In another translation it talks about the flesh flying off before the bones hit the ground. Neutron weapons, anyone? Better get your thermal underwear on.

With the re-establishment of Israel and this administration's cozying up to "alternative" policies, it's coming, and coming fast (relatively speaking). I hope I'm not around, but I fear for my kids.Please take a moment to point out how batsh#@ crazy you think I am.

I don't know about bats*t crazy. This is exactly the kind of biblical passage that fanatics use to justify any number of atrocities. Any type of religion that is based on the idea of a chosen people is bound to see justification for just about any kind of violence. Their god sanctions it. Now that Israel has its legs under it, and has had a free teat to suck on all these years, it's grown into its own version of fascism.

Back when this was breaking news, I'd heard it was purchased through the normal illegal channels and the U.S. government was fully aware of it. However, it's been a generation since I'd last seen anyone write about it, so we will have to wait until its breaking news again.

But how can we expect Iran to curb its nuclear ambitions if the Israelis won't come clean?

Uh, one's a democracy and the other is a theocracy dedicated to killing everyone who doesn't comply. Good thing that all the useful idiots aren't just in the White House and America. Good to see the Brits have some too.

willfullyobscure:I was fine with it when Israel was a pro-civilization secular progressive democracy with only a mild appetite for blatant apartheid.

Now that it looks like the murderous looneytunes fundie davening troglodytes are taking over, I'm lot less comfortable. I don't trust a Chasid with a nuke any more than I trust the Taliban.

FUNNY HAT+NUKES==BAD IDEA

Hands up anyone who thinks Israel will get a pass on this? Exactly. Now imagine if Bolivia or Laos or the Netherlands had stolen the Bomb from the US Army. Yeah, South America would suddenly have its own Great Lake.

gfid:rzrwiresunrise: It'd be one thing if Israel were a power broker working for peace in the ME, but they're not. It's been time to radically reassess US relations with them, and I can only hope that as more and more of these revelations come to light, we'll start moving toward an official realignment.

Peace in the middle east does not revolve around Israel. Look at Syria, Egypt, Iraq, Yemen, every farking country in that region. Okay, a few of them aren't embroiled in civil war, but there's a bit of terrorism from time to time.

If I had to live in the middle east, I'd say Israel looks like a pretty good choice. They certainly make a better ally than Saudi Arabia.

I read that as: "Hey, I know my buddy steals money and jewelry from me when he comes over to my place, but you should check out his pad!"

THIS. Spiffy? Eh? Is mildly interesting I guess, but everyone has know that Israel has had a nuclear weapons capability forever.

Also, does that mean Subby approves of theft from the United States as long as its done by our allies? Or approves of the preferential treatment that Israel gets? There will never be peace in the middle east as long as the two sides cannot trust each other, and the double standards in US policy have certainly hurt any progress towards such goals.

Does it matter? Iran with nukes is a terrible idea, Israel has shown that they can have nukes and not go mad nuking everyone. Maybe Iran would be similarly responsible with them, but more likely they won't be, and it'll spark Saudi Arabia and other countries to want to get them. It'd be nice if no one had them, but Israel does, and I don't think that's too bad. They're not a terrorist nation with a record of pandering to extremists by calling for genocide. Israel having nukes seems no worse than France having nukes.

Thank God it's Israel and not a terrorist country. Got worried for a second.

These are the things I think about when I think about Israel's security. When I consider Israel's security, I also think about a people who have a living memory of the Holocaust, faced with the prospect of a nuclear-armed Iranian government that has called for Israel's destruction. It's no wonder Israelis view this as an existential threat. But this is not simply a challenge for Israel -- it is a danger for the entire world, including the United States. A nuclear-armed Iran would raise the risk of nuclear terrorism. It would undermine the non-proliferation regime. It would spark an arms race in a volatile region. And it would embolden a government that has shown no respect for the rights of its own people or the responsibilities of nations.